SummaryofmyCAPMExperience

Mark J. Grover

On Monday, October 21, I made the decision to take the CAPM for several reasons.

1. I am scheduled to begin teaching an IT project management course at Cape Fear Community

College. This certification is important since it gives me a unique perspective to teach students

to prepare to take this same industry-recognized certification.

2. It validates many years of project management work I have performed in the course of my

professional career.

3. It satisfies the requirements of one of my Graduate Courses: MIS592 - IT Project Management,

Dr. Cummings, Instructor.

Upon discussion with Dr. Cummings regarding this undertaking he let me

borrow a book to prepare: CAPM in Depth: Certified Associate in Project

Management Study Guide for the CAPM Exam; Dr. Paul Sanghera, PMP,

CAPM; Course Technology/Cengage, 2011, ISBN: 978-1-4354-5534-4.

On Wednesday, October 23rd I began the process of scheduling my Exam.

First, I had to create an account on the Project Management Institute’s

website (www.pmi.org), and then complete an application to sit for the

CAPM. The application included an option to enter at least 1,500 hours of

Project Management Experience or 23 hours of verifiable project

management education. Since I completed a Project Management Certificate Program in Fall 2010

through UNCW’s Swain Center for Business I already had accumulated 35 hours of formal PMI training

so I chose the education option. Upon completion of my application I had to wait for my application to

be approved. Later the same day I received an email showing that I was eligible to sit for the CAPM.

After logging back onto PMI’s website, and paying the $300 exam fee, I received an email showing a PMI

Eligibility ID and an Expiration Date (how long this application was valid). Although I had just paid for

the exam I didn’t feel ready to schedule it quite yet, so I decided to focus on studying the weekend.

With the support of my family, from Friday, October 25th through Sunday, October 27th I proceeded to

read all 370 pages of the CAPM in Depth book and completed many of the review questions and

exercises. The challenge I had with this book was that it is based on PMBOK version 4. The Project

Management Institute (PMI) released version 5 of their standards in July 2013, so not many publications

have been released that conform to the new standard. I decided that I would focus on knowing version

4 and not worry about the differences, since most changes are incremental at best.

On Monday, October 28th I scheduled my exam for Monday, November 4th at 1:30pm. In order to make

the appointment I had to log into Prometric’s website (for which I already had an account) and schedule

the test. Prometric did not require any payment, just the PMI Eligibility ID I received 5 days earlier. Now

my course was set, and I had a “hard date” to which I had to prepare for. I spent the majority of the

week going over the CAPM In Depth book reviewing key concepts and doing more practice questions.

On Friday, November 1 I focused my study on looking at PMP/CAPM type questions. I started off using

www.PMStudy.com since they had “free” resources. I completed two free tests, both of which I felt

were helpful. I wanted to do some more “real world” simulation so I started searching for some

additional information. I happened upon the website www.pmhub.net. I found this website to contain

a LOT of very useful information. I found a link under “Popular Topics” for CAPM related blog postings.

Basically, a bunch of comments were left stating what people experience and what helped them pass.

In one of the postings someone made reference to the “JimBOK” – a summary of the PMBOK written by

Jim Owens. I found his resource to be very helpful as it broke down each knowledge area into 5-11 page

summaries. The best part was this was FREE and available to anyone who joins the pmhub blog (as

stated on the blog: Out of respect for the author’s request, the JimBOK is not to be freely distributed –

only made available to members of pmhub.net).

Saturday & Sunday,

November 2-3 – I decided I

was ready to begin taking

practice tests. In my research

on Friday I learned about a

good practice site –

www.pmexampreparation.co

m. This site had a CAPM

eSimulator that provided

Unlimited timed and scored

practice exams, Study by

Process Group or Knowledge

Area, and had a bank of 600+

questions. The questions

were based on the PMBOK 4th

edition, so I knew that I would

be at a slight disadvantage of

not having the 5th edition, but I was OK with that. I initially signed up for the “free trial” which gave

limited questions limited to the Time Process group. I quickly decided to pay the $10 fee for 24 hour

access (which actually ended up giving me 2 full days!). What made this site of particular interest to me

was that it is NOT a brain dump site. PMExamPreparation.com did not advertise themselves as having

actual test questions, nor did they endorse such a practice. As I began doing the practice exams, I

quickly found where I was deficient and needed study (note in the picture my early attempts weren’t so

good!). One area where I was weakest was with Earned Value formulas.

I was having a hard time remembering all the formulas and when to use each one. A quick search on

images.google.com for “PMP Formulas” yielded a link to Geoff Crane’s blog

(http://edge.papercutpm.com/help-with-pmp-self-study/). In his blog he had a GREAT chart showing a

quick way to remember the formulas:

While looking over the JimBOK I noticed he mentioned that typically the PMP is 60% PMBOK and CAPM

is 100% PMBOK based, so I thought I would do a quick search to see if anyone had a comparison chart of

what changed between PMBOK 4th and 5th edition. The results of my search lead me to

http://www.pmbody.com/pmbok5-itto-changes-in-excel-sheet/ and a spreadsheet detailing those

differences. The spreadsheet clearly showed

things added, removed, or changed. My test was

a little more than a day away so I didn’t want to

overwhelm myself so I just quickly looked over it

just so I wouldn’t be completely caught off guard.

I did several more practice tests, and reviewed

the JimBOK once more. The weekend was over

and I had done all I could do to get ready.

Exhausted and feeling poorly I went to bed.

Monday, November 4, 2013 – Today is the Day! Having not slept well the night before I am a little off

but am nervously prepared to sit for the exam. I taught my scheduled classes then arrived at the test

center ready to go. After checking in I sat down to take my 150 question, 3 hour test. The first thing I

did was to use the provided erasable board to write down all the formulas that I needed; having

accomplished that I began. As I started answering questions I began to appreciate the practice tests I

did the prior two days. To me the questions in the certification exam were much easier. On my practice

exams I had questions such as “What process area does xxx get performed” and “Which of the following

are NOT a tool and technique of xxx”. The CAPM questions were a little more straightforward. The

other thing I noticed is that the CAPM focused almost exclusively on the Inputs, Tools and Techniques,

and Outputs. I had noticed during my study that many PMP blog postings referenced ITTO’s and now I

know what that means!

I had a group of questions where a diagram (SAMPLE PICTURE)

was given and multiple questions were asked about the picture

(critical path, float time, early and late start, dependencies).

I also had a group of questions where I was given a table of

values and had to calculate CV, CPI, SV, SPI and EAC – I was sure

glad I found that chart by Geoff Crane! So all the formulas I memorized were used.

As I completed the questions, I marked ones I was not confident on for further review. When I finished

answering all the questions I took a quick bathroom break (the test center allows this, but at no point

could I exit the testing facility – I might also mention that I had to place EVERYTHING “on my person” in

a locker or lock it in my car. I couldn’t even take my wallet to the testing area!). After returning to the

computer I went through the questions I marked to see if any questions in the exam would have helped

me answer others. For the majority of the questions I left them as originally selected. When I finished

the exam I clicked on “End Exam” and then Survey opened up. Needless to say that was the last thing I

wanted to do – I just wanted to know my score! After 2 hours of working on this exam I quickly

completed the survey, and

when I was done I nervously

clicked the “Finish” button. I

was elated to see one word on

the next screen: Pass.

Although I received “Below

Proficient” on two sections, I

attribute my shortcomings on

only studying 4th edition

material. Stakeholder

Management is a new

Knowledge area with the 5th

edition and I spent no time

reviewing the new criteria.

Procurement Management

was tricky in that you had to

distinguish exactly when a

contract was bid, opened,

closed, or modified and who

the seller or owner was and I

honestly didn’t spend enough

time reviewing – so I’ll have to

do some review so that

doesn’t trip me up again.

That’s it – my path to CAPM.